July 13, 2008

What if there were no Congress, income tax... or couch springs?!?

Can German Expressionist dream sequences save the state income tax? The Thicket, a blog at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has unearthed a short film from 1947 depicted what happens when an ordinary taxpayer wishes away the US Congress. Perhaps opponents of the upcoming referendum to abolish the state income tax could get some pointers. Imagine a commercial in which playgrounds, bus stops, health clinics, and police officers standing next to holes in sidewalks all disappeared. (Well, maybe there won't be enough time for that last one.)

I have to say, though, that while The Powers of Congress has its moments, it's no Case of Spring Fever.

UPDATE: A reader points us to a "what if?" video that's already out there:

You mention a German film for tips on an ad on the destructive effects of eliminating the state income tax. In fact there already is a web ad that shows something of the sort: a disappearing teacher. See: http://votenoquestion1.com/

No doubt the fans of cutting the income tax will claim that the ad is just using scare tactics, but it is a certainty that eliminating the income tax would in fact result in enormous layoffs of teachers, social workers, and public safety personnel unless communities and possibly the state hiked property taxes to stratospheric levels.

This proposed measure has generated a torrent of attacks against public employees and claims that the state is squandering vast amounts of money, but none of the items mentioned as waste (such as police details) account for anything more than a tiny fraction of the 12 billion dollars in revenue that the state would lose. This is a profoundly irresponsible measure unlike any ever passed in any state, and it is time that state leaders and op ion makers lose their air of detachment about this matter and get serious about telling voters the truth. It is possible that a tiny fraction of Libertarians really do believe that the state would be better off without public schools or Mass Health, but the ordinary voter may not want to gut public education, health care, social services, and public safety.